[Thunar-dev] GtkFileChooser-like UI

[Benedikt Meurer]

Jeff Franks wrote:
>> Jeff, can you please explain what you dislike about this mockup exactly?
>>
> That's was a kneejerk but heartfelt No! I was hoping we could do better 
> than that. The old GtkFileSelector was dreadful but functional. The new 
> GtkFileChooser is a big improvement but still not the best GUI design 
> I've seen to base a file manager on. And in either GTK+ 2.8 or 2.10 
> GtkFileChooser will have an icon view, so then the above file chooser 
> design will look just like a GtkFileChooser widget.

I think this was Auke's intention, to present the user with a GUI he's 
already familar with.

> The row of location 
> buttons at the top of the icon view will take up unnecessary space if 
> the window also has a toolbar.

Thats one of the major problems I see here as well 
(http://thunar.xfce.org/wiki/ui:gtkfilechooser-like#possible_problems). 
On the other side I have to admit, that I'd need a toolbar mostly to 
press the Up-button, which is obsolete with the GtkFileChooser-like 
approach.

> The functionality of the buttons could 
> easly be implemented as a drop down list on an optional location bar, or 
> as an optional tool item on the toolbar.

The textentry location bar is the traditional approach here.

A tool item on the toolbar doesn't sounds right to me, it's not 
something the user would expect.

The first Filer designs had a popup-list (as known from BeOS Tracker or 
Spatial Nautilus) to navigate to parent folders:

  http://www.xfce.org/~benny/tmp/filer-chooser-button.png

But I think its not obvious that you can navigate around using this way. 
Besides that: Its not a one-click solution (for the `speed'-freaks) and 
it doesn't always display the list of parents (you need to click the 
button first to see which directory you're in). So, I dropped that idea 
for a navigational file manager.

The GtkFileChooser-like location bar way provides an alternative to the 
traditional location-bar, which offers some advantages. Besides some 
rather advanced features like one-click navigation to the parent 
folders, it also allows to lock down the user to its home folder 
visually - "protect the user from the filesystem" or vice versa "protect 
the filesystem from the user" - as he cannot accidently leave his home 
directory using the location bar (this is one of the best points in 
Auke's argumentation *IMHO*). You'd need to use the shortcuts sidebar, 
the 'Go'/'Places' menu, a keyboard shortcut (<Alt>Up) or the sidebar 
treeview to escape from your home directory (no problem for an advanced 
user, but a good protection for a newbie who does not care about the 
file system). And for daily work (of the average user), you'll seldomly 
need to escape from your home folder anyway.

> The sidebar looks fixed but it 
> should be optional.

It's optional currently (View -> Sidebar -> Hidden).

> Whatever the final Thunar design 
> though, it should reflect the Xfce user's needs rather than the Xfce 
> programmer's preferences.

That's the whole point in this discussion actually, to develop a file 
manager for the user's needs, not a file manager for our needs. ;-)

As said, I'm not convinced about this new layout yet, and I'm always 
open for suggestions.

But what I personally like about Auke's suggestion the most is the fact 
that it presents the user with a well-known interface. And thats not an 
interface the user knows from some other Desktop/Operating System, but 
an UI that he uses all day with other Gtk+ apps as well. This is very 
consistent.

> Regards,
> Jeff. Deux

greets,
Benedikt